Defending controversial ideas requires more than being right

For a very long time, I discussed with friends just to prove to them that I was right. I did that to try to prove that I was better than them just because I thought I knew what they didn’t.

I eventually realized that if I was proven right, the relationship would not strengthen because of it. My self-esteem would not increase because of it. All I would achieve was simply making them uncomfortable about being wrong while watching me believe that I was better than them.

If I was wrong, they would find it very unpleasant to talk to me whenever they disagreed. They would feel as though they were not being listened to and that trying to help me correct my errors was a waste of their time.

The fact is that trying to prove my friends I was right was a waste of my time. When I was right, I gained nothing from my friends. When I was wrong, I gained nothing from my friends. All I gained was having the friends I wanted to engage deciding to avoid me.

Politics and war are complex issues. They also involve values. They involve morality. People’s feelings are tied to these topics. If I want more allies on these issues, the last thing I should do is to diminish others importance by implying they are worse than myself just because they were wrong and I was proven right. If I do that, I will find myself alone in an empty trench, fighting for what I love, knowing that I will lose.

So before entering a discussion with my friends about controversial topics, I examine my motives. Why am I doing it? To feel better about myself? To make others feel terrible about themselves? To torment people with what I believe is true? To show them how much I know? Or to search for the truth together with them, knowing that truth is an individual achievement?

I strongly suspect that answering these questions will help me not only to avoid losing more friends over the desire to feel good about myself while teaching them, but also enter discussions with the sole goal of learning something new from them and at max have a good time. I am glad I learned this in time, alongside friends who had also learned their own lessons and were generous enough to share what they had learned with me. I am glad I was not trying to prove myself right when they taught me this.